It's a critique of right-wing libertarians that is common among anti-statist libertarian socialists or social anarchists. The argument is that the market is entwined with another kind of authoritarian violence and that liberatianism (and classical liberalism) are blind to (or worse, actively endorse).
Violence and coercion of the market is masked by [classical] liberal thinkers behind a veil of talk about contracts, negotiations between supposedly free parties, and natural rights. But in the end it comes from a history of enclosure, land expropriations, elimination of the commons, privatization, colonization, and is backed up by the army and the police.
Finally the corollary of this is that state (at least our kind of state) coercion is actually outcropping of market coercion. And so we have police forces, armies, schools, etc. enforcing property rights above all other things.
When a market is defined by mutually beneficial trade between consenting individuals coupled with free competition, how can exploitation arise in liquid markets? A large part of libertarian theory is that monopolies arise due to state intervention in the market (i.e. patents, regulation increasing cost-to-entry etc).
Because as soon as there is a power imbalance, such as one person owning a factory and another's primary skill being working in such a factory, the mutually beneficial arrangements will nonetheless tend to benefit the one with power more than the one without. And over time these imbalances can amplify such that the wealthy capture more and more of the wealth they create.
>A large part of libertarian theory is that monopolies arise due to state intervention in the market
Some do, but I think natural monopolies can also exist, due to inherent barriers to entry in some industries. Things like natural resources, incumbent infrastructure, and network effects.
I've seen this argued before, primarily in the Marxist analysis of the relationship between employer and employee (or capitalist and worker). I can see how this relationship could be exploitative given one employer, but in a liquid market where companies are competing for employees in the job market, the capitalist perspective would be that companies that offer a more enticing employment package (better benefits, wage etc) would naturally have an easier time hiring and would thus be able to grow faster, out-competing companies with poor offerings. I've not seen a good counter-argument to this.
Also, the idea of wealth capture going to the capitalist kind of makes sense in that part of the implicit exchange between employee and employer is one of income stability: the employer agrees to pay a set rate no matter how much value the employee is generating, and in exchange they absorb risks around market fluctuation, unemployment (which is a real risk for higher-value-capture individuals like contractors) and devaluation. At-will employment seems to mess with that arrangement in the US but here in the UK it seems like a fair trade. If one wants to capture a larger share of their value then one must go freelance/contract (or start a business) and accept the risks that come with those types of work arrangement.
> Some do, but I think natural monopolies can also exist, due to inherent barriers to entry in some industries. Things like natural resources, incumbent infrastructure, and network effects.
Natural resource monopolies don't seem to really exist (all natural resources are heavily competitive and end up being commoditised) and infrastructure such as water can be competed on (both directly as in a second water plant, and indirectly as in building home water tanks). As for network effects, there comes a point where pain from monopolistic exploitation outweighs the marginal utility of the product. If facebook started charging money, for example, people would leave in droves.
Government doesn't really solve any of these issues itself and instead acts as one big monopoly that increases prices not through profiteering but through inefficiency, politics and bureaucracy. Libertarianism certainly has its faults but when weighed up against statism it doesn't seem any worse even in its failings.
This assumes that hiring costs are significant relative to wages, which is rarely the case.
>At-will employment seems to mess with that arrangement in the US but here in the UK it seems like a fair trade.
The notable difference being the state regulation in the UK which requires employers to provide that stability. And even that is eroding with the rise of zero-hour contracts.
>infrastructure such as water can be competed on (both directly as in a second water plant, and indirectly as in building home water tanks)
A second water plant isn't competition for the infrastructure, just the purification process. The water still has to get to your house, and the company which has already built a pipe is at a huge advantage compared to one that hasn't.
>As for network effects, there comes a point where pain from monopolistic exploitation outweighs the marginal utility of the product.
It's certainly possible for monopolists to push things too far and end up vulnerable to a market entrant, but the result of this is a brief period of competition followed by the winner returning to monopolistic behaviour. And the entry cost of this kind of disruption is sufficient that it happens very infrequently.
Monopolies wouldn't exist or form with perfect competition (in theory, monopolies would be overcome by an infinite number of startups undercutting them), but there is no such thing in reality and monopolies have so much market power they can just buy out or undercut startups indefinitely. Also borne out by reality, where the vast majority of the time monopolies must be dismantled by the state. It's a little tricky in that the government also allows some companies advantages over smaller companies, but in general a government is much more dangerous to a (non-state) monopoly than it is beneficial. Anywhere you get weak governments, you immediately get markets that are entirely dominated by one company or group, who then usually manipulate prices and quash competition.
More generally the idea of laissez faire economics/libertarianism is that government actions are "unfair", and that causes the problems. In reality if there are "unfair" actions, they are far better used by the government (which normally has the interest of its citizens in mind) than they could be used by corporations (who have the interest of their shareholders in mind). NB that this is a strawman attack and that some types of libertarian philosophy knowledge some kinds of rules and government are necessary, but that kind of reasoning is not at issue.
What the quote says is that 'getting the government of your back' reflects the infatuation with 'Mussolini's fascism's corporatism'. He is not equivocating. He's just saying they reflect the same thinking.
First of all, most obviously, Mussolini's fascism is the destruction of the people's government, and its replacement with corporations. The only difference is that the corporations are constructed by the government. The reflection comes in the lack of a people's government so that corporations or market forces decide what the people do. In that way, pure libertarianism and Italian fascism are superficially the same. It's not hyperbolic, its a real parallel, similar to how you can draw a parallel between communism and dictatorships through (varying amounts of) authoritarianism. Fascism and libertarianism are parallel due to having no (or lesser) personal representation.
Unrelated, but following from that, is the idea that the government is basically a union for the people. Individually a person has no recourse against a greater power eg a company can fire me on a whim, and it may easily ruin my life but will certainly be a large upset and setback as I lose 100% of my income. Meanwhile that company operates at 99% efficiency for a few weeks or months, before returning to 100%. The company is clearly less bothered by firing people than they are. This stance rejects any idea that the government is less than (or at least, that it should be less than) operated to further the interests of its citizens. It rejects Hobbes. Under that, "getting the government off your back" is perverse- it means unloading your ability to advocate for yourself onto a despotic party who is only interested in their own goals, be it money or the "state". Fascism does this overtly- its literal intention is to remove all power from the individual, and give it to the interests of the state. Libertarianism does it obliquely, but nevertheless if you assume the government should represent the people's interests as a whole, then it can only be taking away power (power derived equally from everyone, implying democratically) and giving it to someone else. That makes it much easier for corporations to force individuals into making poor choices because again a corporation by its nature has better information and more resources than individuals, and can always get the upper hand.